‘I could,’ Mo said briefly, before broaching the subject uppermost in her mind. ‘Has Jimmy come back yet? There are lots of people talking downstairs, but I don’t think I can hear his voice, and he promised to be back by ten o’clock.’

Roseanne had come upstairs holding a candle, and by its flickering light Mo thought that her friend looked a trifle uncertain. ‘Well, there are a lot of people downstairs and one of them might be Jimmy,’ she admitted. ‘But I’ve never seen your brother. What does he look like?’

Mo gave this serious consideration, sitting up in bed and twisting one of her yellow curls around her finger. ‘Well, he’s not a bit like me, because he’s dark with straight hair and very straight eyebrows which make him look cross, although he isn’t, of course. Jimmy says I take after our mam and he takes after our dad, that’s why we’re so different. He wasn’t wearing his own coat because we were in disguise like, so’s Cyril wouldn’t reckernise us. He’ll still be wearing the brown corduroy coat and cap Mr Theaker lent him, I guess.’

Roseanne looked doubtful. ‘He’s only eleven or twelve, isn’t he? Well, there are one or two boys downstairs, but none of them are wearing corduroy, as far as I can recall. Do you want me to go down again and ask? Only I’m sure he must have come in by now; why, it’s nearly half past ten. Has he gone cutting holly? Most of the lads do that so they can sell it round the markets on Christmas Eve. It’s stealing really, of course, only nobody minds. I’ve heard my dad saying it’s like country kids scrumping apples; so long as they don’t take too many, not even the farmers object.’

‘No, it’s all right, you needn’t go down again. I’m sure he’s here,’ Mo said slowly. A plan was forming in her mind, but she did not mean Roseanne to put two and two together. Instead, she snuggled down the bed again, and watched as Roseanne jumped between her own sheets and turned to her.

‘Your brother has probably gone straight to bed with the other boys, so just you stop fretting and go to sleep. And no sneaking around the house trying to find him, because tonight the place is as full as it can hold, and we can’t have young ladies tripping over boys in sleeping bags and maybe rousing the whole house. Promise?’

‘Course I do, Roseanne,’ Mo said, fingers crossed firmly behind her back. She gave an enormous yawn and patted her mouth. ‘Gosh, I’m sooo tired. Goodnight.’